With the nowadays highly developed video technology, there are various kinds of portable handheld video devices commercially available in the market. For example, cellular phones, personal digital assistances (PDAs), MP3 players, and GPS (global positioning system) receivers all are very popular portable electronic video products. To enable easy carry thereof, the portable video products are usually compact to have small volume, low profile, and low weight. Some advanced video products are even provided with a touch-screen interface to reduce or even eliminate operating keys from the video products.
These portable video products are frequently carried by users in a purse, pocket, or protective carrier. U.S. Pat. No. 6,182,878 discloses a carrier for portable cellular phones. The carrier may be pivoted about a waist belt, a suspender strap, or the like, and the cellular phone held therein may be extracted therefrom for use at any time. The carrier disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,182,878 may be differently sized for holding electronic devices other than the cellular phone, such as PDA, GPS receiver, etc.
The conventional protective carrier for cellular phones and other electronic video products is designed simply as a carrying device and does not allow the user to operate or watch the screen of the video product when the same is held in the carrier. For example, a doctor at a patient's bedside would usually hold a PDA with left hand to watch the patient's case history, and therefore has only the right hand available for taking care of the patient. The PDA occupying the doctor's one hand would inevitably form an inconvenience to the doctor.
It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop a carrier for handheld device that not only protectively holds a handheld device therein, but also allows a user to watch a screen or operate keys of the handheld device without the need of extracting the handheld device from the carrier.